Arachnophobia

So, I was outside cleaning off my front porch when I looked out at the beautiful spider web I've been watching develop right along side my front steps. It's a large, amazing spiderweb, that I haven't worried about much, as I figured friendly spiders make short work of pesky bugs and such in my garden. That was, of course, until this time, when the architect and occupant of the web was just sitting there, dead center, about the size of a frog I once owned. I threw the kids inside the house and called Greg to come kill it. And to bring the camera.

I got a couple pictures, but being kinda camera illiterate, I was having a hard time getting it to focus on the actual spider, and not the pretty vines in the background. I did get a couple shots of it (only of its underbelly), but nothing of it moving with it's legs out, when it was the size of a small dog. (Greg claims I'm exaggerating.) Instead, I just have a few shots of it curled into that terrifying ball of killer spider. (Only Greg saw the top side of it. It apparently had quite the pair of fangs.)

Icky, right?

So, we did the humane thing. Which is Greg getting out the shop vac, sucking it up, then smashing it flat with a large rubber mallet. I thought about going and burying it's remains in an unhallowed Indian burial ground or something, to assure it would never rise again. Or would that make it rise, as an evil zombie spider of enormous size? Crap, I should research these things. Either way, I never wanted to see it again, so Greg did the easy thing and just scraped it off into the trash.

Does anyone recognize that kind of spider? I saw red flashes when it scurried, I'm assuming as nature's way of telling me this spider is poisonous and/or of the devil, but Greg seemed unfazed. Let me know if it is in fact some form of deadly arachnid, so I can point out to Greg that my freak-out was not an overreaction, but a reasonable reaction to a near death situation for me and my children. And so I know if I should get my yard sprayed.
If it's a harmless, yet still unreasonably large spider, don't tell Greg.

Unrelated flashback: I remember my Dad taking Star, Talina and I to see "Arachnophobia" at the dollar theater. According to Google, that was in 1990, so that'd make me 11, Star 9 and Talina like 6 or something. All I remember is Star and I screaming a lot and hiding our heads, with possible whimpering, all the while my Dad kept telling Talina, "It's all just pretend, it's not real," to which the tiny kid would nonchalantly reply, "I know Dad," and continue chowing down on Nerds candies.

Edited to add: Annie just walked up and said, "Mom, how did the huge spider get on your blog?!" Another Annie blog reference -- Today as I was getting the girls into the car after a shopping trip, I handed Ellie the toy lap top and Annie a book. Annie said, "Hey, Ellie has the computer! Maybe a picture of me reading this book will show up on her blog." I just stood there, looking kinda dumbstruck for a good 5 or 6 seconds, marveling at the difference in childhood vocab and conversational topics in this kid's generation vs. my own.

Edited again to add: According to a friend on facebook, it was a cat-faced spider. I've included a picture of what it looks like with it's legs open and from the top (where its ridiculously large bulbous growth thingy apparently resembles a cat's face), just to show you how truly ugly it was. I now feel a little bad that, as I found out online, "despite their large size and bizarre appearance, cat-face spiders are harmless to humans." All it was trying to do was eat my garden's bugs (and possibly Ellie, I'm still not 100% convinced it was so benign). And I went and killed it. (Or, more accurately, made my husband kill it. But I'm probably still culpable . . . since I planned and ordered the hit, that makes me at least an accomplice, right?) If Greg asks though, my reaction was completely reasonable, as this spider was most likely the most dangerous animal alive, and I didn't overreact at all. Now that we're all on the same page . . .